Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Recently, Meta, Twitter and other technology companies, the parent companies of Facebook, have begun to lay off staff. Technology founders and chief executives who have been eager to expand their companies for years are lining up to send the same message: sorry, we're going too fast.

On Wednesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg (Mark Zuckerberg) admitted his fault to all employees. Zuckerberg said the company will cut 11000 jobs, or 13% of its existing workforce. Zuckerberg told employees that he thought the sharp shift in online business after the outbreak would be permanent. "I was wrong, and I'm responsible for it," Zuckerberg said.

A few days ago, Elon Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla, cut the number of employees by about 50 per cent after taking over the social media platform Twitter. Jack Dorsey, the company's co-founder and head of Twitter until last year, apologized to the company. "I'm moving too fast in expanding the company," Dorsey tweeted on Sunday. I apologize for that. "

Alameda Research, a cryptocurrency trading company, and Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, detailed what happened in recent days on Thursday. He also said to his employees, "I'm sorry."

With the increasing number of layoffs among technology companies in recent months, companies across the technology industry are repeating this pattern. Jeff Lawson (Jeff Lawson), chief executive of cloud communications company Twilio, announced in a letter to employees in September that the company would cut 11% of its workforce. "I am responsible for choosing to expand the team faster," he said. "now, I also made the decision that the company should focus and lay off staff."

The chief executives' comments partly reflect the impact of the recent sharp decline in the technology industry. The technology industry has been growing at a high speed for a long time. But as investors are often warned, history is not a reliable indicator of future performance. The statements made by senior officials of technology companies show the illusion of persistence that people may have in times of prosperity. For some of these executives, this is the first time they have to deal with a severe economic downturn.

Two years ago, technology companies found that the amount of time people spent online increased dramatically after they found that people were at home because of the epidemic. As a result, executives in the technology industry quickly organize recruitment, take advantage of this market opportunity and accumulate talent.

Since the outbreak, Mr Zuckerberg has increased the company's workforce by more than 80 per cent to about 87000. From the beginning of 2020 to September, Google's parent company, Alphabet, added nearly 68000 employees, an increase of about 57 per cent. Over the same period, the number of Twitter employees more than doubled, while the number of Twilio employees tripled to 8992.

But two years later, demand for products and services ranging from digital advertising to computer chips has fallen sharply, and the poor economic outlook has led consumers to spend less. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index (Nasdaq Composite Index) has fallen more than 30 per cent this year.

Jeff Hunter, chief executive of Talentism, an executive training company, says companies are deploying staff to deal with the situation to keep them ahead of their competitors.

"it all happened. They made a lot of money. They don't want to lose the war for talent." Hunter said, "and then the party was suddenly over."

In his speech on Wednesday, Zuckerberg reviewed the surge in revenue in the technology industry at the start of the epidemic. "many people predict that this will be a permanent acceleration. I think so, too, so I decided to significantly increase investment." Unfortunately, things didn't turn out as I expected. "

Earlier, Meta said that for the first time in its history, advertising revenue fell for two consecutive quarters.

There have been layoffs across the technology industry in recent weeks, with social media companies alone laying off more than 16000 employees. Chipmaker Intel said it was laying off staff, and Peloton Interactive, an interactive fitness platform, cut its workforce by about half after four rounds of layoffs. Robinhood Markets, an online brokerage, also said it was cutting jobs, announcing in August that it would cut about 23% of its jobs.

During the epidemic, many technology products and services were in short supply, and companies had a strong incentive to recruit staff quickly.

This is the case with Amazon. When Americans are quarantined at home, they buy daily necessities online, and Amazon has become the lifeline of many Americans to some extent. Between 2020 and March 2022, Amazon doubled its workforce to about 1.5 million. In order to meet the rapidly growing market demand, the company has opened hundreds of new warehouses, sorting centers and other logistics facilities. Amazon's profits almost tripled over the same period.

Recently, Amazon's performance has been the worst in history. Andy Jassy, the company's chief executive, has been trying to quickly adapt his business to different circumstances. Amazon's blue-collar workforce fell by nearly 100000 in the second quarter of this year. However, Amazon said it is adding staff to its warehouse to meet the demand of the holiday shopping season.

John Chambers, a technology investor and former chief executive of Cisco, says the ongoing job cuts also reflect the fact that companies will naturally reassess their business prospects, which is difficult to do in a long boom. "growth covers a lot of mistakes, and 12 years of uninterrupted growth means we're a little fat," Chambers said.

In July, Alphabet, Google's parent company, announced that it would slow the pace of hiring for the rest of 2022. "when you're in the process of growth, it's hard to take the time to make the adjustments you deserve," says Sundar Pichai, chief executive. "moments like this also give us an opportunity."

Tech executives who have been forced to announce layoffs hope they don't have to learn this lesson again.

Snap, the owner of Snapchat, the photo social platform, announced in August that it would lay off 20 per cent of its employees, after the company's headcount grew by 65 per cent in two years. "this magnitude of layoffs will greatly reduce the risk of having to cut staff again," said Evan Spiegel, chief executive of Snap.

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